Thursday, June 5, 2008

Thyroid Cancer

Amy Worthington made a clear connection between microwave radiation and the thyroid gland -- especially in how it might indeed relate to obesity -- in her most recent excellent article "Generation X-Ray" -- a generation that, I might sadly add, is not only complacent but also complicit in their own tragedy. And now with the cancer connection being made even more publicly stronger with the CNN program on Larry King Live and the articles appearing in the New York Times, The Toronto Star, and the International Herald Tribune, it should be time to take a closer look at this rise in thyroid cancer. As is stated below

"Radiation exposure is a major suspect because this gland at the base of the neck is one of the most radiation-sensitive organs of the body."

And we must also remember from Amy Worthington's article

" For each minute a child presses a microwave phone to his head, he may suffer radiation damage equivalent to approximately 1.1 chest X-rays.

• For each hour a child uses a transmitting wireless phone or wireless laptop to communicate, watch videos/TV or play games, he may be exposing his developing brain, eye and gut tissues to radiation damage equivalent to 66.6 chest X-rays."

It's a no-brainer for those who still have their brains -- for those still left with the ability to make logical inferences. Two plus two equals four!

paul

Thyroid Cancer on the Rise In Many Countries

Cancer of the thyroid is increasing in incidence in the U.S., Canada, Europe and Australia. Radiation exposure is a major suspect because this gland at the base of the neck is one of the most radiation-sensitive organs of the body. Its carcinogenic effects can show up decades later in, for example, adults who as children of the 1940s and 50s ' were given radiation therapy for such benign conditions as acne and enlargement of the thymus, tonsils, and adenoids. Today's patients run similar radiation exposure risks from overuse of CT scans. Another likely explanation for the rise in thyroid cancer is the steady increase in the use of imaging tests like magnetic response imaging (MRI), ultrasound and CT scans. Improvements in imaging techniques over the last two decades have allowed doctors to find tiny, slow-growing cancers that would have been missed in another era. Often they are found incidentally during one of these imaging procedures ordered for reasons other than suspicion of thyroid cancer. The overwhelming majority of these cancers will never become life-threatening.

To determine the likely cause of the increasing rate of thyroid cancer in Canada, William D. T. Kent, l MD, of Queen's University, Kingston, collected patient data from the Ontario Cancer Registry. The researchers hypothesized that the rising incidence could be due to overdetection. This refers to an increased detection of a very common type of cancer that does not progress-a cancer so tiny it cannot be felt during a physician's manual exam.

If, on the other hand, environmental factors like radiation exposure (natural or medical) caused the increased incidence of thyroid cancer, then there should be a varied distribution of tumor sizes at diagnosis, and this varied distribution would remain stable over a 12-year period. To resolve the issue, the Canadian researchers identified 7,422 cases of thyroid cancer diagnosed in the province of Ontario between 1990 and 2001. Pathology reports were obtained from a randomly selected 10% of these patients.

All had the common types of thyroid cancer that are usually symptomless and unlikely to kill had they remained undetected. (The medical term to describe them is differentiated thyroid cancer, which includes papillary and follicular cancers). No cases of the life-threatening thyroid cancers-medullary and anaplastic-had been diagnosed in the patients in this study.

"Our findings are consistent with our hypothesis that the rising rate of differentiated thyroid cancer in Ontario is due mostly to increasing detection of small tumors from greater use of medical imaging. These data support similar recent findings from the U.S., but our more detailed analysis identified patterns according to sex and age," wrote Kent and colleagues, whose last point refers to the disproportionate number of small tumors detected among women and among people older than 45 years.

These results were published last November in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.

What's Happening in the U.S.:

The use of CT scans, magnetic response imaging and ultrasound has increased 5% to 10% yearly between 1992 and 2001. Not surprisingly, there has been a nearly three-fold increase in the diagnosis of thyroid cancer in the U.S. over the last 30 years. Yet death from thyroid cancer has always been-and still is-rare, less than 1,500 deaths annually. This suggests that the increase in thyroid cancer is predominantly due to the increased detection of tiny papillary cancers. "An untreated 1 cm or less papillary carcinoma of the thyroid has a virtually 100% survival rate," according to Louise Davis, MD, who co-authored a 2006 study of the rising incidence of thyroid cancer in the U.S.

It's the word virtually that scares both doctors and patients. Currently, as many as 85% of people diagnosed with thyroid cancer in the U.S. are treated with a total thyroidectomy regardless of the size of their tumor. They must take thyroid medication for the rest of their lives.

More Information: To avoid unnecessary treatment see "Cancers That Do Not Kill" August 2006 issue at www.medicalconsumers.org

WEEP News

by: Martin Weatherall

As a Canadian independent foundation, WEEP acts as an umbrella organization and focuses on progressive initiatives that bring increased awareness, policy change, and entrepreneurial activity around the issues of safe Electro Magnetic emissions.

WEEP News is a service provided by WEEP to keep those interested in and affected by Wireless, Electric, & Electromagnetic Pollution, informed on a daily basis, of all the current issues and initiatives in the world today.